Blood on the Horns

by Roland Lazenby

  The 1996 offseason brought surgery for Harper and a slow 199697 campaign, but once the playoffs returned, he was again a huge factor in Chicago claiming a fifth title. Once again, he had quietly sacrificed his scoring for the team.

  There were many things that Pippen prized about his friend. But Harper’s selflessness was tops among them. And, make no mistake, everyone agreed, from Krause to Jackson, that he was a huge chunk of the Chicago Bulls’ substantial heart.

  In the business of pro basketball, many teams make the mistake of evaluating players on their statistics. People can easily measure rebounds and points and assists, but Red Auerbach used to pay his Boston Celtics players merely on their contributions to winning. That was a point emphasized to the Bulls by stress counselor George Mumford: What are your contributions to winning?

  That was why Pippen valued Harper so highly. “That’s what it’s all about, as far as winning,” Pippen said. “You can’t get anything accomplished until you get people to accept that goal. You can’t go out and play selfish and be considered one of the greatest teams. You don’t accomplish anything by trying to achieve a lot of individual things. You have to go out and do it as a team, and when it’s all said and done, the whole team is rewarded for it in some way or another. That’s what the regular season’s about, to sort of get all that out of your system and realize that it’s a team game. If you want to accomplish things as a team, you shouldn’t have any selfishness.”

  To gain that, you have to have people willing to live by the quality of things, not the quantity, to live by their contributions rather than their stats. “Ron is a prime example,” Pippen said, pointing to the fact that Harper often would play the first half then see his minutes reduced in the second while Jackson let others see some action. “At times, you know, he’s forgotten over there on the bench in the second half. But he never complains about it, or anything of that nature.”

  Because Harper made that sacrifice, it meant that others on the team felt more induced to make it. “Ron is a guy who shows leadership just by him sitting over there on the bench in the second half,” Pippen explained. “He’s not trying to be selfish. He don’t feel that this should be his time. He’s just sort of sitting back and soaking things in and letting the younger guys see that you don’t have to be on the court to be involved in the game at all times. I think a lot of it is just the leadership he has provided on the court. It’s how he is around his teammates, his personality. He’s a guy everybody has a lot of love for.”

  Just how badly the Bulls needed Pippen was emphasized January 8th with a smashing road loss in Miami. The Bulls took a 28-20 first-quarter lead over the Heat but scored only 44 points the rest of the way and lost, 99-72.

  “There’s no explanation for it,” Jordan told reporters. “You just have to grin and bear it.”

  Jackson, of course, hated to lose to any Riley team and showed his disdain by getting ejected just before half time for arguing with the officiating crew, which included one of the league’s first two females refs, Violet Palmer. “The only thing I’ll say is I’m disappointed with the league for sending a crew like that out to referee a game like this,” Jackson said. “From the very first play, there was a problem.”

  Two nights later they journeyed to New York for their first game of the season in the Garden where Jordan tantalized the Big Apple media by saying that he would “love” to play for the Knicks, “but that would be a selfish act not conferring with my family and knowing that my kids are in school, and I can’t take them out. That’s not great parenting.”

  Jordan’s words combined with Jackson’s comment before the game that he planned to take a year off before coaching again ignited wildfire speculation that a move was afoot.

  Was Jordan reminding Reinsdorf of his close encounter with the Knicks in ‘96? “It would be great to play here in New York if that situation (arose),” Jordan told the media. “(Or) if I was single and didn’t have to worry about uprooting my family from where they are. That would be a selfish approach. I have to think about my family when I think about moving from Chicago and going to other places.”

  Could it happen? reporters wanted to know. “Let me resolve my parenting issues, then I can make that decision,” Jordan replied. “Right now I can’t.”

  The next night, January 11, the Bulls returned home, and Pippen appeared in uniform for the first time since the ‘97 championship series. The United Center crowd greeted him with joyous applause. He played 31 minutes and scored 14 points in an 87-72 win over hapless Golden State. The timing for his return was right. The Bulls had won 13 of their last 15 games and boosted their record to 25-11.

  “I just didn’t have any rhythm,” Pippen told reporters. “Being away from the game, my teammates didn’t know when I was taking shots or what passes I was going to make. Those are things that will come in time.”

  He was asked if his relationships with the team’s front office had been repaired. “I don’t think they’ve been repaired at all,” he said. “We haven’t tried to repair them. I don’t think they can be repaired. I’m just going to do my job and just allow them to do theirs.”

  Asked about his mental state, he replied, “This is the frustration I’ve been going through for the last couple of years and over the summer, having to deal with all the trade talk and things of that nature. I think a player of my caliber deserves better, so I had to stand up and speak out for myself.”

  There remained the possibility that he still might be traded before the late February 19th trading deadline, although Krause had told reporters that any deal for Pippen would have to be highly favorable to the Bulls. When asked by reporters if he was convinced Pippen wouldn’t be traded, Jackson said, “I remain unconvinced about anything.”

  “I would like to finish the season here,” Pippen admitted. “I think the team is looking forward to us going for a sixth title. If something happens, that’s always been out of my control.”

  Just as they got Pippen back, the Bulls lost Kerr for 6-8 weeks with a broken left collarbone suffered in a loss at Philadelphia when the Sixers’ Derrick Coleman went up to block his shot and landed on him. “It was a strange play,” Kerr said later. “It felt like he could have gotten out of the way. He landed right on top of me.”

  A week later, just days after Jordan had praised his good behavior, Rodman stirred the pot by missing a pre-game practice after a night of carousing at a strip club in New York.

  Jackson’s response was to fine him, suspend him a game and send him home from New Jersey.

  “I thought it was fair, and I thought Phil sending me home was the right thing,” Rodman told reporters later. “When I came back from flying home by myself, I went straight to the practice facility and started to work out. I messed up, and that is it. It’s as simple as that. I didn’t feel good physically, and I stayed out a little too late.”

  The Bulls returned home from New Jersey and found the Utah Jazz waiting. Karl Malone scored 35 and powered the Jazz to a 101-94 win that ended Chicago’s 17-game home winning streak.

  Immediately afterward, the Bulls departed on their second West Coast road trip of the season, with games against Vancouver, Portland, Golden State, the Lakers, Denver and Utah that would lead right up to the All-Star break in New York.

  At 30-13, the Bulls were showing definite signs of life. “It’s a bonding trip,” Jordan said of the western swing. The last time he had made such a statement, the journey had turned ugly and sour, producing anything but bonding. This time, Krause would remain home, busying himself with scouting college talent. But the general manager would still find a way to extend his reach to the team, setting up the next round of controversy, yet another exercise in wasted effort.

  “Won’t be long ‘til I’m puttin’ on my flying shoes.”

  —Townes Van Zandt

  10: For the Moment

  It all made perf
ect sense in a Zen sort of way. For the third straight season, the Chicago Bulls had faced an uncertain future. They were a great team, yet the slightest disruption to their modus operandi would likely have been taken as an excuse for the team’s chairman and general manager to break them apart. That meant that a major injury, internal squabbling, or just plain old everyday fear run amok could have spelled their doom. Yet that hadn’t happened. One of the reasons was the Zen concept of “living in the moment,” not losing concentration, not giving in to their concerns about the future.

  “It doesn’t affect him at all,” Steve Kerr said of Jackson. “And that’s to his credit. He always preaches being in the moment and living for the moment and enjoying each day for what it is. He’s got a lot of little pet quotes and sayings that allude to that, and he practices that. It could be the last run for all of us, and he’s gonna have fun.”

  Jordan agreed, saying that Jackson’s dealing so smartly with the adversity of the season had been good for him “because he finally gets some notoriety as a coach. He’s a wise, smart coach, not just the guy who coached Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman. He uses his talent to blend everybody together to have one focus. And he’s doing a heck of a job of that.”

  By all rights, the separation anxiety alone should have been enough to splinter the Bulls into factions. But they all believed in Jordan, Pippen and Jackson, and that bound them even tighter. Jackson loved the unity of it. Zen warriors. In the moment. Doing battle.

  As the season unfolded into February, it became clear that there was plenty of battle to do, on and off the court. They opened their western trip with wins in Vancouver, Portland, and Golden State, then they got waxed by the quick young Lakers in Los Angeles, and one night later righted themselves against lowly Denver.

  It was in Utah, on the eve of their rematch with the Jazz, that word came that Krause had decided to unburden his mind to Tribune columnist Fred Mitchell.

  Jackson would definitely not be back, Krause emphasized.

  “If Michael chooses to leave because there is another coach here, then it is his choice, not ours,” Krause told Mitchell. “We want him back. We are not driving anybody out. We are not driving Michael out of here. That’s bull.

  “The decision on Michael will just have to take a proper time when we will sit down and talk,” he said. “We will talk about what he wants to do and what the situation is with the franchise and who is going to be here, and what our (salary) cap situation is. We would like to have Michael back. But Michael is going to have to play for someone else. It isn’t going to be Phil.”

  Krause also said that Jackson wasn’t “being run out of here. Phil agreed that this would be his last year. He did not want to go through a possible rebuilding situation. Nobody is running Phil out of town. It was a well thought-out decision.”

  Krause also offered up an opinion on the difficulty of rebuilding with Jordan still on the roster. “Obviously, with Michael and the salary he is making now, it would be very tough to improve our team. Our cap money would be gone. It is a highly complicated thing. I would say that no NBA team has faced this type of situation before, cap-wise.”

  Krause should have known Jordan would take the statement as a challenge. After all, the GM had worked with the star for 13 seasons. Krause also should have known that Reinsdorf would be angered by the statement. After all, the chairman’s philosophy was to make no decision, to take no heat, until necessary. Krause had done just the opposite. He had spoken prematurely. No matter what he said later, his words only cemented the impression that he was eager to pack up the current championship team, to clear the salary cap, so that he could begin rebuilding.

  Krause’s comments created a bit of a media frenzy that morning at the Bulls’ shoot-around before the Utah game. Jordan again emphasized that if Jackson weren’t retained, he would move on, too. “It still stands true,” Jordan said. “That’s been my thought process for the year, pretty much. I felt that management has to make a decision in terms of what they want to do with this team, the direction they choose to go in. They have to make their choice.”

  The Bulls lost that night in Utah despite the fact that they had run up a 24-point lead early in the game. The outcome allowed the Jazz a season sweep of the two-game series and home-court advantage if the two met in the 1998 Finals. While the rest of the team returned home to rest during the All-Star break, Jordan journeyed on to New York to take part in the All Star events. He was sick from a cold and almost ducked out to be home and rest with his family. But a gathering of global media awaited, more than 1,000 journalists, and Jordan was ready to fire back at the two Jerrys.

  He missed Friday’s opening media sessions but weighed in Sunday afternoon in the locker room before the game, a crowd of reporters pressed in around him. Asked first about the situation with his team, Jordan said, “I haven’t seen any light on the other side of the tunnel at all. I think management has stated their position. I don’t see how it’s going to work in my favor.”

  Did the fact that the Bulls’ run seemed to be headed toward an end leave him sad?

  “There is a sadness,” he said. “But any time it comes to an end, there’s a certain sadness.”

  From there, he fielded a variety of questions from reporters.

  Does this come down to a fundamental personality conflict between Phil and Jerry Krause and Jerry Reinsdorf?

  “That has a lot to do with it. It certainly can’t be because of his job and what he’s done with the players and the respect he’s won from the players. His success as a coach is certainly impeccable. I don’t think that can be questioned. I think it’s more personal than anything.”

  You are an astute businessman. The story of you leaving the Bulls is a business story in addition to a sports story. Are you surprised that Jerry Reinsdorf would allow a personality conflict to interrupt logical business decisions?

  “It doesn’t surprise me. Especially when you pretty much want to control everything. And it’s more control than anything. It’s not quite the way they want it to be. From an economic standpoint, I’m pretty sure they’re not making as much money, but they’re making money.”

  But they’re losing value in the franchise if you leave?

  “Yeah. That’s the challenge they’re willing to take.”

  A short-term gain? When you and Phil and Scottie and Dennis leave, maybe they add $50 million to their balance sheet for next year? But the value of their franchise decreasing would seem to offset anything they gain?

  “You and I understand that.”

  They’re so angry over the personalities that they would make that bad business decision?

  “I think it’s more personal than anything. They’re willing to take the risk at this stage.”

  Do you have any thoughts of communicating with Jerry Reinsdorf on this issue of the team’s future?

  “None. Jerry Krause would not speak without Jerry Reinsdorf knowing.”

  So this is Jerry Reinsdorf?

  “Believe me.”

  Why are you taking the stand you’re taking?

  “You could pose the same question to them. Why would you change a coach who has won five championships when he has the respect of his players and certainly the understanding of his players to where they go out and play hard each and every day. Why?”

  The quiet argument from management is that Phil Jackson has become arrogant and that they can’t stomach that anymore. Have you seen arrogance on Phil’s part?

  “I’m pretty sure that he’s probably getting tired of Krause. And I’ve been there, a long time ago. I understand (Phil’s) frustrations. Maybe they view that as arrogance. But what I see in Phil is an attitude to work with the players to achieve the best as a team. That means a lot to us. Now in terms of management agreeing with the relationship we have with the coach, that may be a problem with
management. Phil, I think, has an attitude of pro-player to some extent, as opposed to pro organization. He played the game of basketball, so he has an understanding for a lot of things we deal with. Some of the decisions he makes veer more towards the players than the organization. I think that’s a part of the problem as well.

  Have you absolutely ruled out playing elsewhere?

  “It’s Chicago or nowhere.”

  What about Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett and young kids being ambassadors for the game?

  “It’s not about being an ambassador. That’s a heck of a responsibility. What they should try to understand is the position they have and a understanding for the business. They should educate themselves about it, so they’re not fooled by the business somewhere down the road. That’s important. Still enjoy the game. Never get to the point where you don’t enjoy the game. The game is still the game. If you didn’t get paid a dime, you’d still play the game somewhere.”

  The other owners of the Bulls, have any of them expressed their concern about the situation?

  “No. I haven’t talked to any of the owners, none of that. I was shocked by Krause’s comments in Utah. I didn’t know it was coming. But it didn’t really surprise me. I’ve felt that the rift between him and Phil, or between management and Phil was pretty strong. But I thought those types of things would be decided at the end of the season, not in the middle of the season. That was kind of surprising.”

  You have no personal relationship with Jerry Reinsdorf? Wasn’t there a time that you had affection and respect for each other? I mean you even played for his baseball team.

  “I still respect him as a business (man). I still have some personal relationships with him. But it’s very evident that doesn’t come into play here. If it came into play, we wouldn’t have this discussion. But it doesn’t come into play. I’m not surprised, because he’s a shrewd businessman. He makes business decisions a lot of times. He’s not afraid to go against the grain.”